The Watcher
by Believer1
Summary: Obi Wan Kenobi, throughout the events of Anakin Skywalker's turning to Padme's death, to the redemption of Anakin by Luke, has kept watch. He is the watcher, the unseen protector.
1. Part I

The Watcher  
  
The Jedi Temple, a center of peace and justice for the galaxy. It was sheer irony that on this selfsame world lay a place of injustice and rancor, mere miles apart. The Senate chambers for the Old Republic, a den of infamy perhaps worse than Mos Eisley spaceport. Yet on this same planet, the Jedi had held their councils for thousands of generations. Here the lives of many children were placed in careful hands to be taught and trained the Jedi arts.  
  
Obi Wan had often considered the Jedi Temple in his elder years, after the Clone Wars, after the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire. When he had been a Padawan, he had often dreaded entering its doors when he and Qui Gon had returned from missions, if only because he knew criticisms from the other Jedi lay ahead. The Council did not always approve of Qui Gon's handling of issues. To Obi Wan, it seemed that they had been missing the vital point: the issues were resolved. He knew individually that the Jedi Masters on the Council respected and liked Qui Gon and his connection to the living Force was a greatly admired skill. But that did not mean he didn't have to listen to Master Windu or Yoda expound on the risks Qui Gon had taken.  
  
He wondered, if Qui Gon had survived to train Anakin Skywalker, would they have berated his training of the boy?  
  
Anakin had been like a son to Obi Wan. At first, the little boy was an exasperating annoyance, another 'pathetic life form' Qui Gon had picked up because that was Qui Gon's ways. Before Qui Gon had died, Obi Wan hadn't the chance to get to know Anakin.  
  
He felt it in his bones that Qui Gon would've been proud of the attachment they had formed, bonded by that mutual grief.  
  
Obi Wan had been terrified to teach Anakin, though he would never, never have admitted it, not even to Yoda. He had been confident outwardly, but teaching a Padawan when he was so recently made a Jedi had caused him to stay up nights. Anakin had stumped him quite a few times in the early days.  
  
Those memories caused him to smile. The unwanted student had become a beloved son and brother, a comrade. The boy had shared his eagerness to learn and his impatience.  
  
Then his smile faltered. Impatience had been Anakin's downfall. Impatience, overconfidence, arrogance, pride. Fear of losing the mother he lost to a new family.  
  
Padmé and Obi Wan had not been enough to keep him from the Dark Side.  
  
Padmé. She had been heartbroken when Anakin had deserted her and their marriage, the child she bore within her womb a secret she had not gotten to tell him that fateful day when Anakin Skywalker had disappeared and Darth Vader had taken his place.  
  
History had been waiting for Anakin Skywalker to make his mark. It was Obi Wan's fault that mark was one of death, pain, and suffering. Under the Emperor's stern hand, Vader lead a crusade against the members of the former order he'd belonged to. He had slain so many, many fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, daughters, and sons.  
  
It was ironic the Force had given all that Light Side strength Anakin had been missing to his children.  
  
Obi Wan looked at the child once again. A boy, small for his age, with shaggy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, happily scampering after his friends.  
  
This boy was the hope of a galaxy. He could not be weak where Anakin was weak. He had to grow strong, and for that strength, Obi Wan had chosen Anakin's long-forgotten home planet. Anakin had chosen to forget it, chosen to forget the humble beginnings of a slave in his new glory as Dark Lord of the Sith. Obi Wan remembered. He remembered Owen Lars all too well.  
  
Anakin had been furious when his mother had married. He hadn't wanted his home, the only one he had ever known, to change. And it had with the introduction of Cliegg and Owen Lars.  
  
More irony, that the stepbrother he'd hated was the one caring for his son.  
  
Granted, Owen was gruffer than Obi Wan had preferred; but that gruffness hid a good heart. When Obi Wan had pleaded out the tale, Owen and his new wife Beru had taken the child.  
  
Obi Wan had retired, safe in the Jundland Wastes, only when he learned that the boy's twin had made it safely to Bail Organa of Alderaan.  
  
At last, at long, long last, he knew he could say goodbye to Padmé, content that her children were safe and his promise was kept.  
  
Now he would watch. 


	2. Part II

Watcher's Secrets  
  
18 years had passed uneventfully. Obi Wan had kept his distance from the town, the boy, and all life in essentiality. He had no contact with the outside world, yet he knew what was going on. He had heard of the rise of Leia Organa in the Senate. And then the rumors of her Rebel affiliations.  
  
Keeping up with the world on the outer edge of the galaxy wasn't so hard when he caught reports here and there from spacers.  
  
The Hutts controlled this planet, but they did not touch Obi Wan Kenobi. They would never have bothered with a "crazy old hermit," which, in time, the people of the town convinced themselves he was. He had done nothing to either further or deny the rumor, which, of course, only spread it like wildfire.  
  
And he had only had direct contact with Luke Skywalker once. The boy had been all of 12 years old, petrified, as was his friend. They had been lost, and Obi Wan – Ben, he reminded himself, the other name is long forgotten – had never been sure if they were more scared of being lost or being with him.  
  
Owen had not liked the contact. He'd warned Ben to stay away, to not get involved with the raising of the boy. He had promised Luke's raising, and in return, Ben had agreed to stay away, and that bargain was not going to be reneged on.  
  
And then one fateful day, Ben had sensed the boy while he was traveling in the Wastes. He was injured.  
  
Ben could hear Padmé's voice in his mind: "Promise me, Obi Wan, no harm shall come to my children. Give me your solemn word as a Jedi you will not let harm come to them…"  
  
He could only hope he wasn't too late when he got to the boy, making the scream of a Krayt dragon to drive the Raiders away. He had knelt by Luke, feeling for his pulse points, using the Force to waken him.  
  
"Ben? Ben Kenobi? Boy, am I glad to see you." There was relief on the boy's face. Ben suppressed a smile. Better a crazy old man than Raiders, eh?  
  
"Tell me, young Luke, what brings you out here? The Jundland Wastes are not to be traveled lightly," he remarked, watching a change come over the boy's face as he glanced at the little R2 unit.  
  
"It's this little droid. I think he's searching for his former master, but I've never seen such devotion in a droid before...Uh, he claims to be the property of an Obi-Wan Kenobi. Is he a relative of yours? Do you know who he's talking about?"  
  
There were few still alive who would call Obi Wan anything other than "Ben." The only one he could think of at the moment was Bail Organa. And then, why would he call unless…unless Leia was in danger.  
  
But that made no sense. Right under the Emperor's nose, and ignorant of who her parents really were, she was perfectly safe.  
  
Wasn't she?  
  
Settling back, his eyes going distant as he tried to think of what exactly was going on, he said slowly, "Obi Wan Kenobi…Obi Wan. Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time, a long time."  
  
"Oh, then you know him." Luke had seemed a mixture of relieved and annoyed, as if he couldn't decide whether or not to be glad to get rid of R2.  
  
Ben had smiled. "Well, of course I know him! He's me. I haven't gone by the name of Obi Wan since, oh, before you were born."  
  
He had meant, that day, in his home, to tell Luke the full tale. But he and Yoda had discussed this possibility before he'd left Leia and Padmé on Alderaan all those years ago, and both had decided that if Luke was to find out now who his father was, it would destroy whatever hope was left for the galaxy. Leia, although not completely weak, was in too much danger as a highly public figure to go into Jedi training and develop her latent Force abilities. And the twins had no bond. It was vital that they established a link. If Luke turned, she would not be able to defeat him without the aid of that link.  
  
He would have to wait. So he spun a tale – not entirely false – of a great Jedi, his young Padawan, Anakin Skywalker. His revisionist version of events after Anakin turned would of course be called into question by Luke later on, when he was ready for the truth, but for now, this would have to do.  
  
The secret of Padmé and Anakin's forbidden love was a tale that would lie even more beneath the truth of Luke's father's identity. Ben knew that tale would have to be told eventually, but it, too, would have to wait. The fate of the galaxy was in another Skywalker's hands, and once again, it was up to him to train that Skywalker.  
  
He prayed he would not fail this time. 


	3. Part III

Learning to Let Go  
  
The greatest thing that Ben Kenobi took with him from Anakin's fall was that in order to begin anew, one's old life had to die. Ben Kenobi died that day on the Death Star, but his presence in the Force would live on forever.  
  
He had to guide Luke to his destiny, and the only way to truly do that, to have Luke be reliant on himself and no one else and have no interference from a well-meaning but strict mentor, was to let go and let Darth Vader strike him down.  
  
He saw all the old friends he had missed for so many years in that brief instance. Mace Windu and the other Jedi Council members. Dex. Qui Gon. Padmé herself.  
  
And then it was on to that in-between stage where he did not exist, but did in the Force. It was where he could watch and nudge Luke onto the right path. He saw the boy nearly fall when Vader told him the truth.  
  
He could not help Luke then. It was up to Leia.  
  
She heard, and rescued.  
  
Luke had, then, a bloody pulp of a soul, bruised and ripe for the Dark Side at the tender age of twenty one. He'd lost his hand, and gained a horrible truth, a truth he was not ready for.  
  
To hear the boy whisper, "Ben…why didn't you tell me?" nearly cost Ben everything he had been carefully setting up. He wanted so badly to explain, to take the boy aside and dress the wounds that no med droid in the galaxy could fix. He wanted to free him from that pain, to soothe it away as only a father and mentor can do, not in the way Darth Vader had preached.  
  
But this was Luke's lava pit, and he would have to choose how to come out of it.  
  
In Luke, Ben's faith had not been proved wrong. The third generation of Skywalkers had the strength and character their father did not. Luke had known love and freedom before. Anakin's knowledge of it was tempered by pain and the burden of secrecy. Both were two different men, and they had chosen two very different paths.  
  
Out of the ashes of the pyre Anakin had fallen in, came the rising phoenix that was Luke Skywalker.  
  
And through him, the prophecy came true.  
  
The ultimate balance of pure good and pure evil in one man had been wrecked by the complex secrets and lies and betrayal that had surrounded Anakin during those dark times. There had been one spark of hope in him, and that spark was ignited by Luke. Ben had believed that spark was too small to start the fire of goodness in Anakin's heart, but he was wrong.  
  
The 'Chosen One,' the 'son of suns,' was redeemed.  
  
And the Light Side vanquished the Dark. The Rebellion had won, and everyone knew it. Without their Emperor, the Empire was more disoriented, more given to bickering. Their strong leaders could not come together as the Rebellion had under the leaderships of people like Mon Mothma and Leia Organa.  
  
The New Republic was threatened many, many times, the greatest threat of that time rising just shortly before the birth of the Solo twins.  
  
And Ben had known then. The watcher need not watch any more. Luke would rebuild the Jedi Order, and peace would be won. Leia and the leaders of the New Republic would forge it strong in time with the aid of the Jedi. And in time, the Jedi would become the keepers of the peace for a new thousand generations. 


End file.
